Ugh, sorry to hear that. I bet the big ones are being picky merely because they CAN be, a fun predicament for a company that quickly turns into "have to be"... Some HR person has a glut of applicants, literally thousands of submissions, and has started making arbitrary cut-offs to justify to his boss and the team he serves why he bothers calling certain people or picking one interviewee over another. "No internship? I guess we'll toss that one... I mean, we need SOME way to pick between all these excellent people..." When you're throwing your application into a big pond like that, you're lucky to get more than 60 seconds of sloppy, eye-scanning, initial consideration, and they're literally LOOKING for reasons to toss you. So you end up at the less well known company, even though the famous company could quite literally have picked at random from among the best candidates and ended up with equally good hires. No HR person is going to say, "Oh, well, I just pick candidates at random, they're all good, after a certain point my screening only adds so much." That's basically saying, "Yeah, I'm not worth my salary." Nobody says that.
So the trick with an application mosh pit like that is one of two things: (1) insider connection (a friend recommends you or gives you the email of the person with hiring power, you email them directly with a coherent, company-specific cover letter + resume), and (2) informational interviews. With informational interviews, you reach out to someone with the role you're interested in and say you want to visit, get coffee, or chat over the phone to get a sense whether this field + role are a good fit for you. No, you're not necessarily applying, you're doing research to figure out if you and the position/company are a good match, for a prospective job change down the road. You're interested in specifics: nature of day-to-day work, nature of problems, best/worst things about the company/field. That really throws people. It impresses them and reverses the whole dynamic. You're not the groveling supplicant anymore, begging for job-crumbs... you're an autonomous person who knows his/her own worth and is shopping for a good fit. That's powerful stuff that commands attention and gets you interesting referrals, maybe even back to their friends at the big companies.
If you're a top flight PhD it's more likely that people are saying "meh" than "Lord, no" to your application. Lack of relevant experience can often be completely compensated for by (1) enthusiasm and (2) good fit, especially at the the smaller, more intimate companies. If you're seriously facing constant rejection it's more likely that you have one or several of a host of generic problems that plague applicants and bring on the "meh", such as:
- Cover letter too generic. Fails to identify (1) the company, (2) what it does, (3) why you specifically are a great fit for the specific position you are applying to
- Forgot to sculpt your CV to fit the narrative of your cover letter. The CV isn't some static life scoresheet, it's a short story that changes between applications.
- Responds to questions designed to test the outer limits of your knowledge by getting anxious, inventive, and defensive, instead of taking it as an opportunity to (1) acknowledge your lack of expertise, (2) describe a creative application of related relevant experience, and (3) state your eagerness to learn the specific topic they were asking about.
- Apologized for yourself in the interview in any way. Why don't you have more internship experience? GOOD: "Well, I was interested in really focusing on my thesis at the time, but now I want to work in the private sector, and this role in particular really intrigues me. It's actually relevant to what I was doing before in that..." BAD: "Er, well, I don't know, haha, probably should have? Sorry..." Apologies are off-topic. They interrupt your narrative. Don't apologize.
- No proofreading + chance encounter with grammar nut. (But your comment was really elegantly written, so I doubt that's your problem.) Sloppy dresser + chance encounter with sartorial nut. Etc. Don't give some meanie a reason to reject you. Don't break the spell of your story.
- Didn't have any good questions at the end of the interview. Questions traditionally go at the end and in some ways it's unfair to do this to people, because by then they're usually enervated and ready to bolt... but this is the GRAND FINALE, the point where you REALLY need to drive the narrative home.
Lots of people are going to tell you to practice technical interviewing and that's important, but be sure not to neglect the NARRATIVE element of the application. Identify the company, identify you, explain why it's a perfect match. Repeat the same narrative in the CV, the resume, the interview, and the thank you note. That's how you defeat "meh".
Yep. And given how chaotic and dumb it all typically is: You will succeed if you can fix somebody's problem. This process, having to hire somebody, is the company's problem. They want it to be over. You can fix their problem by...
- having a cover letter that correctly identifies (1) the company, (2) what it does, and (3) why you specifically are a good fit for the specific position you are applying to
- showing up in person or over the phone and executing on those 3 points once again
- following up after the interview with a short thank you note that reiterates on those 3 points one last time
Companies (typically) want just these 3 simple things. They WANT them from you. They WANT you to succeed. Show up and BE the solution to their problem. You will blow most of the competition out of the water with the force of your application's coherence alone, and the company will greet you like a long lost child.
Now there are other situations that are designed specifically to intimidate and upset the applicant... undergraduate management consulting and finance recruiting processes can turn into this, notably. I don't have any advice on those situations, other than: Sure you want to work there?
> I can't tell you how many times someone has walked up next to me
> almost fall out of my chair
> a few scares a day
Preach, my easily startled brother, preach. But yet your co-workers don't catch on that you jump-scare so easily?
We should make little signs or banners for people's desks. "Deeply Absorbed Programmer: Do Not Sneak Up On." Issue little handbooks on how to safely interrupt a programmer, as we do currently with sleepwalkers.
If I have to interrupt someone in an open-plan office and can't just message them to get their attention (seriously, what's wrong with just messaging people for non-urgent issues?), I am careful to approach them from the front or peripherally-viewable side and try visual cues first (hand-waving, etc.). I would NEVER use a physical alert method (touching them, knocking on their desk, dropping papers in on their keyboard, etc.). This is one of my several guarantees to the nation.
In college I would always prefer sit in the very back of the lecture hall, back to the wall, even though I knew that real go-getters were supposed to sit in the front. I get really startled if people walk up behind me and try to get my attention, especially if they touch me, my clothing, or my chair. I don't like to be in a space where I can't see who is coming in and out of it, for my own safety as well as to minimize jump-scares. If people coming up behind you while you're all vulnerable and absorbed in thought is something that bothers you, having to work in a space where this is a constant possibility is annoying in the same way that working around high-pitched mechanical background noises or rapidly flickering lights is annoying. It's constant low-level apprehension and stress.
When you introduce screens into the equation, as in open office, there's a new annoyance which I guess you might call "violation of intellectual personal space". Have you ever gotten really annoyed that someone was reading your book over your shoulder? Or felt antsy when someone grabbed your laptop to do an internet search? Or had a coworker glance over at your screen when you were deep in thought and say "Hey, what's that?" Computers, books, and notes can feel like extensions one's mind and it's annoying when anybody can come peruse what we're thinking. My monitor is my mind-workspace. I'm happy to have visitors, but not at any old time they feel like strolling through the door!
I'm not saying that YOU think this, but your comment brought it to mind: Some people think that by making it so that anyone can see your screen, you're less likely to goof off. (With the logical follow-up: Anyone who wants their back to the wall at work just wants to goof off.) Neither is true, in my anecdotal experience. People in open offices will still goof off, they'll just be more sneaky about it. (Or, there will be a complete breakdown in focus and professionalism, and everyone will goof off in a completely brazen manner.)
So the trick with an application mosh pit like that is one of two things: (1) insider connection (a friend recommends you or gives you the email of the person with hiring power, you email them directly with a coherent, company-specific cover letter + resume), and (2) informational interviews. With informational interviews, you reach out to someone with the role you're interested in and say you want to visit, get coffee, or chat over the phone to get a sense whether this field + role are a good fit for you. No, you're not necessarily applying, you're doing research to figure out if you and the position/company are a good match, for a prospective job change down the road. You're interested in specifics: nature of day-to-day work, nature of problems, best/worst things about the company/field. That really throws people. It impresses them and reverses the whole dynamic. You're not the groveling supplicant anymore, begging for job-crumbs... you're an autonomous person who knows his/her own worth and is shopping for a good fit. That's powerful stuff that commands attention and gets you interesting referrals, maybe even back to their friends at the big companies.